vesivett.

Three mass graves with 1,000 corpses found in Iraq

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:23:47 +0300

Three mass graves with 1,000 corpses found in Iraq:

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Iraqi officials have found three mass graves containing the bodies of about 1,000 people thought to have been executed by US soldiers during their occupation of the country.

The graves were uncovered in Iraq’s western province of al-Anbar. The remains are believed to be from victims killed by US forces during 2004 and 2005 in the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Baghdad.

Horrible.

"immigrants, poor people, queer people of color, disabled folks, women (esp trans women of color) and..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:44:52 +0300

“

immigrants, poor people, queer people of color, disabled folks, women (esp trans women of color) and gender-nonconforming folks if you are in academia and you don’t feel smart enough, remember that you are in the playground and training grounds of the elite. academia was not designed to include you. you are surviving something that has been systemically designed to exclude you in order to keep power in the hands of white, middle class, able bodied cis-men.

knowing this, don’t let academia train you to believe that elitism is the right way to make it through school. you can learn shit, hold the knowledge of your people in your heart, discard shame for your humble beginnings and/or marginalized identities. move through this experience knowing that the changes it offers you don’t have to include accepting academic elitism, inaccessible language or superiority. you can can simultaneously own the privilege that comes with being college educated and connections to your roots. academia does not have to kill your spirit.

”

- fabian romero- indigenous immigrant queer boi writer, facilitator and community organizer (via jatigi)

so-treu: Help a TWOC survive summer mocosyamores: Hi everyone, I’m getting over my shame and...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:36:11 +0300

so-treu:

Help a TWOC survive summer

mocosyamores:

Hi everyone,

I’m getting over my shame and internalized ableism and asking for help. I’m a chronically ill unemployed trans gurl who just left sex work (as in, yesterday) because I finally lost my shit. I’m also moving out of my abusive household in June, around the 15th or so. I don’t have a place to stay yet so the more money I have saved up, the more likely someone is going to trust me to move in with them.

Thanks to sex work and friends donating, I’ve saved up $2,000 for deposits, first/last month’s rent, housing applications, etc. I’m trying to raise another $2,000 to get me through the summer. Starting September/October, I should be receiving financial aid from my university, so that will help.

To give you an idea of where the money is going:
- Rent for a shared room is $500-$550/month
- Utilities are anywhere between $20-$60/month
- I’m limiting myself to $100-$125/month for food
- Gas is $40 a full tank, so about a $80/month if I do this right

I’ll also be looking for a job at this time. I have an open interview tomorrow so hopefully I’ll get called for a second interview!

Important to note! My memoir, Trauma Queen, is aiming to be published on May 31st, 2013. It’s going to cost $20, so if you want to hold off donating to buy the book, that’s totally understandable. I have a collection of writing and art here (x) that you can read/watch, and a zine here (x). I’ll also be selling various articles of clothing, shoes, collector’s items, etc. in the next week or so.

Signal boosting would be appreciated, and any donations would be very helpful. <3

¡Gracias! / Thank you!,
Lovemme/Sirena

-

P.S. (if the link doesn’t work, there’s a donate button on my page.)

theneighbourhoodsuperhero: The anguish is clear on the face of...

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:35:00 +0300

theneighbourhoodsuperhero:

The anguish is clear on the face of Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, who takes long pauses in an attempt to steady his tearful voice, as he recounts to the interviewer about how American interrogators repeatedly raped and tortured, or pretended to rape and torture, a woman in the cell next to him in an attempt to force him to falsely confess.

Begg’s eyes cloud over and he stares off into the distance as he relates how they manipulated his biggest fear, that his wife and children who were with him at the time of his arrest, were also imprisoned and in danger:

“I heard the cries of a woman (in the cell next to me) and an American voice shouting, ‘Spread your legs!’ and the woman is screaming and crying (as if she is being raped). Before I used to (always) ask the Americans about what happened to my wife and children since my arrest. They said ‘We don’t know,’ but at this time I didn’t ask because I was afraid of the answer. I thought my wife was in the cell.”

Begg was tortured and assaulted physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually as the American interrogators tried “breaking him down” in order to make him sign false confessions. Begg was released after three years spent in US custody without any charges held against him.

It is still not clear to this day whether the woman in the cell next to him was a fellow inmate also unjustly prisoned or an interrogator posing as a woman in distress.

It is known but hardly ever reported that the United States detains (Muslim) women who they “suspect” of being terrorists for no apparent reason, an example being Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (shown below in a picture of her taken while in US custody) who was abducted with her children by US intelligence.

After severe mistreatment in custody, during which she sustained a gunshot wound, Siddiqui was sentenced to 84 years in prison. Her young children who were with her when she was kidnapped and subsequently detained and interrogated have only recently been relocated. Siddiqui’s youngest son, who hadn’t even started walking yet, has disappeared since her kidnapping with no hint whatsoever of his whereabouts. Her older son has claimed that “the bloody body of his baby brother” was tossed to the side of the road by US soldiers when Siddiqui and her children were arrested. During her trial, Siddiqui was repeatedly removed from the court room for interrupting proceedings to scream out that her children had been tortured in front of her.

Four men who were imprisoned with Dr. Siddiqui in Bagram and who managed to escape reported in an interview:

“When they torture you, they threaten to sodomise you, they threaten to bring your wife and rape her in front of you and do other things to her. My words can never fully explain to you what happened during those interrogations.”

“Those American criminals think that they are the lords of human rights and that they are the callers for the freedom of the woman and her rescuers from oppression. There is a woman from Pakistan. She was put in solitary confinement for two full years in Bagram prison among more than 500 male prisoners and guards. She was treated the same way as the men were. This woman stayed there until she lost her mind, until she became insane, hitting the door and screaming day and night.”

likeafieldmouse: Keng Lye - Alive without Breath (2013)...

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:11:05 +0300

likeafieldmouse:

Keng Lye - Alive without Breath (2013) - Hyperrealistic sea animals created using acrylics and epoxy resin, layer by layer

"Negativity"

Sun, 12 May 2013 13:37:26 +0300

baddominicana:

alexandraerin:

This isn’t going to be the most articulate thing I’ve ever written because I’m not at my most coherent right now.

People who defend polite bigotry from aggressive call-outs under the guise of encouraging positivity and discouraging negativity because there’s too much negativity in the world or because they think positive approaches are more helpful… they really have no idea how much negativity they themselves are spreading, how their cheery defense of bigotry affects those who are affected by that bigotry.

If you can cheerfully leave people shaking wrecks through your casual inhumanity and chide them for being so negative, you are not a positive force in the world even if you never say a single “rude” word.

precisely.

youre over here playin devils advocate for the destroyers of black and brown bodies, w a smile on your face, it dont matter if you havent cursed, you are offensive and negative and fucking DANGEROUS to peoples livelihood. period.

So I write a post on being a Black woman and finding it difficult to have healthy self-esteem

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:20:33 +0300

radicalrebellion:

and folks feel the need to jump on and add “black person” or tell me that “women in general” face shit.

NO. I meant BLACK women, specifically. Because I live in a world where

Psychology Today, a fairly well respected mental health publication, publishes a study finding Black women to be the most unattractive women on earth, and not until they received backlash from Black women, did they think the science was faulty

I live in a world where the Black First Lady of this country is constantly having her body and shape mocked, or being framed as a slave.

I live in a world, in which the best female tennis player’s body is mocked by a white woman on the tennis court and the entire audience just laughs.

I live in a world where Gabby Douglas is the first Black girl to win gold in the all-around and the media story makes it about her hair, and then turns around and blames Black women for it.

I live in a world where a white dude on tumblr feels the need to justify finding a Black woman attractive by stating he’s “not into Black girls, but she’s attractive” B/c you know, she was light skinned and curly haired enough to fit his standard of beauty.

I live in a country where Black women make up, at most like 10% of the US population, but we are constantly having articles written about us and why we are so fat. B/c it’s our fat asses that is bringing down the national economy or some shit.

I live in a world where Black men tell me the hair that grows out of my head naturally, ain’t for me.

I live in a world where a Black man can write about hating Black women, and then when Black women respond negatively, we are called angry, bitter, bitches/hoes, etc.

I live in a world where just last week a Black women wrote a post on the shit we as Black women face in relationships, and a white girl comes along an crosses out the word black, talkin’ about she “fixed” it. Erasing our unique experiences.

I live in a world where Black men will throw interracial dating, and marriage statistics in Black women’s faces in order to get us to shut up, and in the same breath claim to “love” Black women.

I live in a world, where a Black woman writes a post on mental health and a bunch of white women saviors feel the need to jump on and tell us exactly what our problem is.

I live in a world where Black daughters are left taking care of their elderly parents, financially, physically, and emotionally, but it’s the Black sons who get praised for making a god damn sandwich.

I live in a world where a Black woman makes a post about a horrific birthing experience of another Black woman, and how she would prefer a home birth, only to be called stupid and ignorant by white people, b/c we are endangering our children.

I live in a world where the face of the “welfare queen” is Black motherhood.

I live in a world where 90% of the people who will defend Black women against these constant attacks are other Black women, and we will get mansplained and whitesplained for our troubles.

So no, I absolutely did not mean “Black person” which usually translates to Black man or “women” which usually translates to “white women”

Don’t change my fucking words.

girljanitor: moniquill: TAL9000: stfuconservatives: Minimum wage jobs are absolutely harder than a...

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:33:08 +0300

girljanitor:

moniquill:

TAL9000: stfuconservatives: Minimum wage jobs are absolutely harder than a well…

stfuconservatives:

Minimum wage jobs are absolutely harder than a well paying desk job. I work 40 hours a week at Fazoli’s, and I endure so much physical pain that I must go through a bottle of over the counter pain killers a week. I spend anywhere from six to ten hours on my feet, I get charlie horses multiple times a week that prevent me from sleeping through the night. I have a pinched nerve in my back but have to wash dishes over a sink that is so low my back will hurt badly enough I get physically sick. - unapologetically-abrasive

Before I had health insurance, I had crippling back pain. I was less productive at work because of it. Once I was able to get back on my parents’ insurance (THANKS OBAMA - no really, thank you), I saw a GP and a chiropractor and it turns out it’s a pinched nerve in neck, radiating pain down through my shoulder blade. A couple adjustments and regular visits, and the pain is intermittent and manageable. I get a lot more done now than I used to. Accessible healthcare = workplace benefits in productivity. WHO KNEW.

Pain is such a huge part of low-wage work. If you haven’t read “I was a warehouse wage slave,” you need to. The people who need health insurance the most are the least likely to have access to it.

I was just having this conversation with a guy in the parking lot “smoking area” where I work a few days ago. I used to do janitorial, and he’s currently doing food service at the college, and we were commiserating on how the first thing you do when you get home from say, a 9-hour shift, is go to the bathroom.

Because your body hurts so much once you stop moving, you don’t even want to get up to go to the bathroom.

We talked about how you take a fistful of NSAIDs every day to cope with the pain, and you wonder about the effect on your liver and kidneys. We talked about how you set up a little area where you can reach your drink and food where you plan to fall asleep, because at the end of the day, you don’t want to think, you don’t want to move, you just want to lay there and try to deal with doing it all over again next shift.

Say it with me now

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:26:07 +0300

setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

The feelings of bigots don’t matter

bad-dominicana: Life as a black person: -inquire bout renting a space, get told they dont want that...

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:55:11 +0300

bad-dominicana:

Life as a black person:

-inquire bout renting a space, get told they dont want that particular kind of biz there, soon after its rented to whites w same exact biz

-inquire bout buying biz, get shot down w money in hand, soon after sold to whites on credit

-inquire bout employment at 695595 white places, get shot down once they realize youre black, get sent to the one black place in town

“why dont black people have more businesses or people in this field or making money, i havent the slightest!”

"Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:06:05 +0300

“Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting thinking, ‘Oh, people are such a bunch of assholes,’ but it’s really not like that. We just have a smaller tolerance for what it takes to be with others. It means having to perform. I get so tired of communicating.”

- Anneli Rufus (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

OMG. This.

(via lurvelettersandpaperhearts)

Yes.

(via poodleman)

I’m reblogging this everyday.

Sun, 05 May 2013 13:38:11 +0300

I’m reblogging this everyday.

Photo

Sat, 04 May 2013 23:49:44 +0300

theprophetlilith: miss-sakamoto: I don’t give a shit why I’m trans or the biological and...

Fri, 03 May 2013 18:26:41 +0300

theprophetlilith:

miss-sakamoto:

I don’t give a shit why I’m trans or the biological and phycological theories about it.

Hell, even if am just doing this for no more reason than it feels good, it is still a perfectly valid way to live my life and I still deserve respect.

COSIGNED.

Let's Talk About What it Means to Be a Convicted Felon

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:22:31 +0300

strugglingtobeheard:

disclaimer: this is my own personal account so i won’t respond to fuckery and if you cite without proper citation and permission, it’s your ass. this story about the young Black girl being charged as an adult for a science project gone wrong inspired this.

i am someone who has been convicted of a felony. it was non-violent and drug dealing related. this criminal justice allows felonies for people who are arrested with others in possession of drugs even when you aren’t found with them on your person. since this happened, starting when i was 17 and something i had to deal with in court until 2010 so basically 4 years, i lost a lot of “friends”, my mother had people telling them their children couldn’t come over and be with my sister, i’ve had people ask about whether i am taking drugs because i lost a ton of weight due to stress. but one of the most impactful things that happened is i could no longer find work.

being a convicted felon means it doesn’t matter how skilled or long you’ve worked in a field. it doesn’t matter that i have an associates. or a bachelors degree. or soon a master’s degree. every single company pretty much in the company has the legal right to discriminate against me without impunity. there is no legal recourse convicted felons can take when they are denied time and time and time again for jobs they apply and are qualified for. recently, companies like staples and others had to pay large fines for simply phasing out people who have checked yes on the question, have you been convicted of a felony. and when you are perpetually unemployed, employers also have been found to discriminate against you for being unemployed and not currently working.

this is on top of being Black. perceived a woman. mentally ill. and queer. which already contribute to my marginalization and to the marginalization of many other people in that situation. when i was hired by a temp agency i was immediately fired after my record came back, despite being told i was the best temp the office had in awhile. after applying time after time i couldn’t work. i ended up dancing at a club for a few years. something that also contributes to stigma and showed me who my true friends are. it was the only way to keep a roof over my head and eat and still go to school. you know how many queer people of color go to jail simply for this crime of sex work to survive? for selling drugs to survive? for doing whatever they need to survive. when we are already pushed out of everything.

as a convicted felon, all comments in articles about my ass and people in my position say i deserve whatever i got. whatever it is violence, abuse, firing, r*pe in prison or many other things, people in the US believe felons deserve it. there is a completely racial nature to this of course in a white supremacist nation that thrived off free labour of enslaved Black people and then denied them reparations and continue to lock them up for more free labour and to support an economic system designed to terrorize us.

as a convicted felon, i can’t own a gun even though as a black queer perceived woman i am more likely to face death at the hands of a partner or by the police or other types of similar violence. being a convicted felon means you can never touch a weapon even if you were always non-violent. it means you will go to jail again if you are ever caught with a gun even if it’s to save your life.

as a convicted felon, it means all acts of violence against me will be questioned as questionable. even though black women already face that dilemma. it means that my entire background will be scrutinized and used as an excuse to do whatever the fuck people please.

as a convicted felon, i am held up as a bad Black person, holding back the good Black folk. i can’t stay out of trouble, get a job, stop being involved with the wrong men or the wrong work or get off the pole and just do right. these are the same people who blame black women as the fall of the black community and do backflips to deny white supremacy and anti-blackness.

as a convicted felon, i am always afraid of the police. i never feel safe to ask for help. i am at the verge of breaking down every time i see the cops. my heart stops every time i hear a siren. i get cold sweats and have bad dreams about the times guns have been thrown in my face, being thrown on the grown, having my doors busted in and being called everything under the sun. i am told it’s only a few bad apples when this kind of generational violence at the hands of police is something my people have experienced for over a hundred years.

as a convicted felon, i am what you warn your kids not to be. not to become. not to aspire to.

as a convicted felon, a white man with a felony conviction is more likely to be hired than a black person without a felony conviction. leaving me to ask, where does that leave me?

as a convicted felon, i am no longer eligible for any form of public assistance, be it food stamps, welfare, public housing, nothing. i can’t ask for help from the government i pay taxes into when i do work. i can’t utilize these so called “safety” nets. as someone who is lucky to have family who on one side has a bit of wealth cause they are white, i have been able to survive somehow. but not everyone has that. where does that leave black babies and children of convicted felons? where does that leave homeless people who have been convicted of felonies trying to get back on their feet? where does that leave sex workers convicted of felonies dying to change their career? where does this give us the resources to create generational wealth or a foundation when we can’t even get a mcdonalds job sometimes.

as a convicted felon, it means that if i got this conviction while on financial aid, i would never get financial aid ever again. ever. despite that they want me to stop selling drugs, stop dancing, stop doing what i do. despite the fact that you need support and financial backing to do that. despite the fact that education is one of the few opportunities to upward mobility black women have. all these black men we say are in prison instead of college. how the fuck you expect them to get to college when the black family wealth is less than $10,000? what is that going to do for these people who need funding? but oh, you wanna pump drugs into OUR communities, convict us for selling or being addicted and then deny us every institutional outlet available to try and survive and get one step forward.

as a convicted felon, i am always afraid i will never get ahead. no matter how educated. no matter how much i do that is acceptable in the eyes of white society. i can never stop paying for a crime of survival. ever. i always have to explain, apologize. and this fear is based on reality, the reality that every college i apply to, every job i apply to, asks about my background or runs a check. and has every legal right to excuse me no questions asked.

y’all wanna charge Black girls as felons for doing SCIENCE projects and tell us it’s not racist? it’s not terrorism? it’s not genocide? it’s not selling our children for a price? you wanna tell us to pull our pants up, go to school, talk white, act right, study, do this, do that, and even when that happens if we cough the wrong way we could end up in jail and lose everything. yall wanna treat Trayvon Martin like he was convicted of a felony and deserved to die simply for being found with a weed baggie at school? yall wanna act like going to church and being good for the white man is going to save Black people when we have over a million of our people in jail and even more with felony convictions. when healthcare, education, proper housing, safety and all that depend on some type of wealth. that no matter how hard a community bands together they can only support each other so much without those resources.

you wanna tell us we want more stop and frisk? you wanna tell us we need to be targeted more? that we are the description. that our kids need to go from school to prison. for what? to serve you as the slaves you so long to legally get back and have maintained in the shadows for generations.

wanna talk about what it means to be convicted as a felon? how about you fucking ask us? think about what you are going to put this girl through. what you have put millions of us through. what you plan to put millions more through. think about what your white silence and guilt does. it fucking kills. and your respectability politics. it fucking kills. you wanna cry about twerking and hip hop ruining our children when this is a possibility. fuck outta here. this is what it means to be a convicted felon. it’s fucking terror.

The effects of unchecked criminalization: Teen charged with felony for science experiment

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:43:28 +0300

The effects of unchecked criminalization: Teen charged with felony for science experiment:

girljanitor:

robot-heart-politics:

aka14kgold:

onebigpear:

fuckyeahfeminists:

This is what the school-to-prison pipeline looks like. This is how black youth criminalized.

She was doing a science experiment

She’s being charged as an ADULT

She’s being charged with a FELONY

If this all goes the way the prosecution wants, this young woman will be LEGALLY discriminated against for the rest of her life. No voting, housing discrimination, employment discrimination (as if getting a job while black isn’t hard enough), etc. etc.

There is a petition up … spread the word.

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot

Hey, remember this from yesterday? Go ahead and hit up the petition.

The school’s justification:

Riptide spoke to the Polk County School District about why they felt expulsion was a fair punishment for Wilmot. Their response: kids should learn that “there are consequences to their actions.”

…

The school is on twitter and facebook. Feel free to start the public shaming.

what the everloving FUCK

cat doesn’t want to get out of nice warm bath [x]

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:16:45 +0300

cat doesn’t want to get out of nice warm bath [x]

Out In The Night has 5 days to raise ~$1,700

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:35:06 +0300

Out In The Night has 5 days to raise ~$1,700:

thearkhproject:

sourcedumal:

alexandraerin:

From the campaign:

The story of 4 friends, out for a night in NYC, who became known as a “Gang of Killer Lesbians” when they defended themselves.

When is self-defense justified?

What does a “victim” look like?

Who gets called a gang?

WHY WE ARE TELLING THIS STORY

This is not an easy story to tell. The women defended themselves, forcefully. But by showing the events of that August night, you will make up your minds about what happened. For four years, our team has filmed important pieces of this story carefully and intimately that will allow you to understand how race, class, gender and sexuality came to bare upon this case. While we unpack the fight itself, we are most interested in revealing what happened after – including the trial that reveals the court’s skepticism around self-defense, and the mainstream media’s biased coverage. OUT IN THE NIGHT is a film designed to unpack complex issues, including the racialization of gang assault charges and who is seen as a victim and who is not based on race, gender and perceived gender-identity. It is a story about four young women and their families, but it is also a tool for action and change.

Please please please make this happen!

THEY ONLY NEED $1500 MORE! PLEASE SUPPORT FELLOW QPOC ARTISTS!

THEY ARE SO CLOSE! SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE!

"White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:25:25 +0300

“White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way … they were right… . But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place… . It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread … until it invaded the whites who had made it… . Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.”

- Toni Morrison, Beloved

(via howtobeterrell)

bad-dominicana: a-tropical-elf: eldritch-abomination: dont fucking shame people for not reading...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:30:24 +0300

bad-dominicana:

a-tropical-elf:

eldritch-abomination:

dont fucking shame people for not reading for pleasure

some people have concentration issues

some people have other hobbies

and some people just dont fucking like reading alright

shut the fuck up and sit down

i was once a dickhole, and didn’t agree with the above

#personalgrowth

i keep saying this,

first, it ignores precolonization, our cultures werent written, and were devalued precisely because of that and also shredded and remixed into white poppycock when they wrote it up for us. eliminating other forms of passing on knowledge like oral and musically, etc, is how we got everything stolen and erased! therefore, legitimacy via written word is colonial as fuck.

second, everyone doesnt have the ability to read. i can barely focus on it. its ableist as fuck to act like those who cant are below you.

third, everyone dont got access to education to learn to read properly, or to books!

so fuck your reading. if you like it, good for you but stop shoving it down peoples throats and waving it in my face like it makes you somebody or its the key to life.